Blue Like Jazz
What would Forest Gump be like if he were more intelligent and were raised in a Baptist family? Answer: Read Donald Miller's autobiography, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. If you put a southern accent in your mind as you read Miller's story, and replace Jenny with Jesus, you will see what I mean.This book was so frustrating to read. One minute he'd be saying such bass-ackwards things like "The goofy thing about Christian faith is that you believe it and don't believe it at the same time. It isn't unlike having an imaginary friend" (51), and then the next minute he'd be dead-on: "If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing" (111)
All said and done though, there were way more bones than meat. He does a good job at times of diagnosing the problems in the modern evangelical church, but too often he seems to totally miss the point and pick the wrong fights. Often I was left feeling like Miller was telling me that the solution was to realize that God wants me more as a lover than as a servant, or even a son.
Here are a couple of particularly icky quotes, which leave me wanting to have nothing to do with Miller's Jesus:
"I remember the first time I had feelings for Jesus" (236)
"I remember thinking that I would follow Jesus anywhere, that it didn't matter what He asked me to do. He could be mean to me; it didn't matter, I loved Him... I think the most important thing that happens within Christian Spirituality is when a person falls in love with Jesus" (237).
"I think loving Jesus is something you feel" (239). I could go on and on.
Sorry, I don't think of Jesus being like the perfect Brad Pitt, rather I think of Him as Aslan; and I as one of his beloved loyal subjects, maybe even Edmund himself. I serve a King. And I do love Him, but I never want to fall in love with Him. Bleh!
posted by DrewDog at 2:31 PM
12 Comments:
Hmm... not sure that I'm agreeing with you here, on the falling in love thing. I think God is in many ways like Aslan but in many other ways he is also like The Song of Solomon.
Anyway. I think you should post American Idol updates. All the cool kids are doing it.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree...
And if you haven't noticed, I'm not very cool.
Cheers
as Gump once said, "Christ is like a box of chocolates..."
The use of SOng of SOngs as indicative of how our individual relationship with God is supposed to operate seems problematic.
Though the book has been interpreted allegorically, is it important to realize that reading the book to understand how to feel about God is a minority reading with many problems.
A better way is to see the book not as an allegory for CHristians and GOd, but a celebration of romantic love between an actual man and an actual woman.
In a world that saw the expressions of the "flesh" as dirty and evil, Jews and Christians celebrate the fact that God created us male and female...and it is a VERY good thing.
We go to Song of Songs not to see how to feel towards God but to be reminded about how great wives are.
And thats all I have to say about that...
"The use of SOng of SOngs as indicative of how our individual relationship with God is supposed to operate seems problematic."
Well, I wasn't saying that nor was I trying to imply that SoS was supposed to be interpreted in a strictly allegorical fashion, though I can see why my comment might have been taken as such. My apologies for not clarifying further.
Some theologians will tell you that SoS can be read both ways, but I think the Bible is full of other instances where we see God desiring a love (passionate?) relationship with us. Perhaps I should've used Hosea as an example, because that's the most obvious one to me.
I think the concept is just more difficult for men to embrace, since we see God in a masculine sense.
anonymous: I guess we'll have to agree to agree.
I should loan you my copy of BLJ; it has a "Platitudes Undone" kind of feel (much less witty, obviously). The words I wrote at the end of his book, and which I think he should have put there in the first place, are "That's all I have to say about that."
I think everyone agrees that we have to "love" God. It seems that the real broader issue here is the definition of love.
Many think of love as primarily a special blissful feeling that comes over someone (perhaps against their will, i.e. falling).
Others see love as a deliberate act of the will, and feelings, though important, are secondary.
A person's understanding of love will affect their understanding of relationships both with the opposite sex and with God.
As Pericles said to the Athenians, who then passed it on to Foreigner, and which I would like to dedicate to Vijay and Aaron:
I want to know what love is.
I want you to show me.
I want to feel what love it.
I know you can show me.
Mike,
I was going to write a big long treatise about the philological problem of using the language of falling in love with reference to God, but I it would take too much space here. Perhaps I'll post on it soon.
Unitl then, hopefully this will clarify the danger:
I think it is entirely appropriate to say that I love Mike Janke. However, I'll be darned if I ever say that I have fallen in love with Mike Janke.
That's not becuase Mike Janke is any less lovely than Christ (he may or may not be), it is simply because falling in love is erotic terminology.
Cheers.
Who is this gentle stranger named Rob with pecks like melons and knees of fringe?
Thanks, Rob. That was going to be one of my main points in my next post. But since you said it already, I don't have to...
Wait. Shoot, now I have to think of something else. Jerk.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
what is this about you liking Rob's underthings?
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